Wednesday, 5 April 2017

DCC Campaign Update: Like That Scene From Total Recall, but in Your Ass

When we left off, the party had mostly just witnessed the destruction of the evil Guardian Robots' headquarters, in a huge fireball caused by Bellmunster, the head of the High Council of Wizards. It was uncertain how many of the high council had managed to survive the battle.
Bill the Elf witnessed nothing, however, because he'd buggered off with Fluffy the Cat, a wizard of the High Council who was secretly a diabolist in the service of a daemon called Rataxis the Imprisoned. They had teleported to a barren sinister asteroid called Gebo, where there was a black monolith that Fluffy explained was the entryway to his master's prison; it was also where Fluffy had used trickery to trap the Hippomagus, after tricking him into retreiving an incredibly powerful artifact called the Sunstaff.

-Mu is still in the sewers, with Myla and her rebels. He uses his psionic power to communicate with animals to talk to his pet Giant Hamster. He's surprised to find he has a fancy posh type of voice.
"Oh of course I do my good man, hamsters are the aristocrats of the giant rodent world."

-"I'll call you Puffybottoms or something like that!"
"That name is idiotic."
"Oh, then what's your name?"
"Sir Mortimer Hufflesnuffs!"

-Morris, meanwhile, is lost in a different part of the sewers, alone.
"Mu abandoned Morris... Bill abandoned Morris..."
"Even the Guardian Robots abandoned me!"

-Yarr the halfling sniper has been missing for days; it turns out she'd been kidnapped... by the Time Dinosaurs! They talk to her in dinosaur; she tries to talk back and they seem very offended!

-Through an incredibly shitty game of charades, the Time Dinosaurs manage to explain to Yarr that she needs to get a crystal orb to Bill the Elf. They don't manage to explain what the fuck it's for.

-While the blacksmith goes off to loot the city, Roman and Heidi search the rubble of the Guardian HQ to see if they can find any of the high wizards. They come across the shattered remnants of Sir John De La Pole.
"Does he have anything to loot?"
"No, he was a staff. It's not like he had pockets."

-Next they find Zak, the artistic wizard, next to his shattered flute.
"He died as he lived... like an idiot."

-They keep finding remains of the various wizards; it turns out that everyone on the council who was present at the battle died, except for Princess Fairywinkle. They found her with the decapitated corpse of Bellmunster the archwizard; he had survived the massive fireball he created, but it seems that he was slain by Bolt-1 after the explosion, when he was nearly-helpless from massive spellburn.
"Bolt-1 is a real asshole!"

-Bill is with Fluffy in front of the monolith. He asks Fluffy if he can finish studying for his new spell before they go in, and Fluffy agrees. Then Bill suddenly springs the runestone of sleeping on Fluffy and his carrier, and both fail their saves and fall unconscious. He murders them both!

-Just as Bill was about to settle in to finish studying his spell, Yarr teleports in.
"I have this orb for you.. it might be a bomb."

-Bill wants to send Yarr back to Lol, but having recently had an experience using spellburn that made him worried that he might get hit by the "all is sezrekhan" bug, he chooses to take a Corruption to cast Planar Step instead. His corruption ends up mutating his head into a snake's head.
"Awesome!"

-Then he fails his spell anyways.
"Oh well, I guess you're stuck here for today. hss"
"OK, but I'm not going to be sleeping!"

-Morris, wandering through mostly abandoned city streets, runs into a trio of council-apprentices, a guy who looks like some kind of viking-wizard covered in strange runes, and a robot emu.

-The Viking Wizard ends up Charming him.
"He now interrogates you to find out everything you know. Unfortunately, he quickly learns you know nothing of use."
"That's my defense mechanism!"
"The less you know..."

-Myla finds out from Mu that the entire high council other than Fairywinkle are dead.
"Maybe you could talk to her!"
"Yes... maybe we could 'talk' to her."
"No, I mean maybe she will really be reasonable!"
"Yes... maybe she really 'will' be reasonable."
"Stop doing that!"

-Obviously, Myla plans to murder Fairywinkle and everyone left at the wizard tower.
"Remember, Mu, don't cross us. There's room for the bourgeoisie in our revolution, so long as they have revolutionary tendencies."
"I'm not bourgeoisie! I came from the Shithole!"

-"Hey Yarr, while I study my spell, go into that monolith and free the Hippomagus!"
"No thanks."
"But he'll be grateful!"
"Will he?"

-Mu makes it to the tower, and asks to speak to the person in charge. They send him to Roman, who wasted no time in becoming the chief administrator.

-Mu, who's by now tired of having to carry the giant hamster everywhere (because he's too posh to walk), gifts Sir Mortimer Hufflesnuffs to Princess Fairywinkle, much to her delight.

-Unfortunately for Yarr and Bill, the Monolith-gate requires solving a riddle to open. Fluffy probably knew that riddle. They can't figure it out, lacking some vital information. It requires saying 'the name', but just what the name is doesn't seem clear. Below, the riddle is signed "Zuman the Magnificient" but that is apparently NOT the name required.
"I'll try the name of every mighty wizard I know... which is like six."

-When the Viking Wizard learns that almost the entire council is dead, he decides it's time to start looting their towers. He takes his charmed thrall Morris with him, to act as his door-opener and human shield. Morris gets in through a window, and the first thing he loots is... a bucket. From what is very obviously a closet.
"Why?"
"I empty it and put it on my head. Safety first!"

-Morris gets to a room where a transparent magical spiked-wall appears and starts trying to crush him.
"Does it look like a magical trap?"
"It's a glowing ethereal wall that is slowly moving toward you."
"So yes?"

-"Chancellor Roman has already spoken with the sky-nazis without you. He thought you were busy."
"So he's chancellor now?"
"Yes. He even has a sash that says 'chancellor' on it".

-Heidi is sent out to deal with the huge mob that Myla has gathered with the intention of massacring everyone in the High Council tower.
"Myla, we have to make peace. There's sky-nazis approaching."
"Sky-Nazis?"
"well, I mean, we asked them to come. They're here to help us with something."
"What?!"

-After Myla seems unwilling to make peace with a Wizards' council that's ready to make a pact with Sky-Nazis (who'd want to murder 9/10ths of Lol's population), Heidi decides to ease things along by using his new Ring of Human Control (obtained from the wizard Roncha's corpse) on Myla.
"I need you to give us some time."
"We will give you some time."
"Myla, what??"
"Oh, and we need you to let the sky-nazis through the spaceport when they arrive."
"We will let the Sky-Nazis through the spaceport when they arrive."
"Myla, what??!"

-Myla goes back with her people to the spaceport terminal, for now. Heidi reports to Roman.
"I have to say, you're an amazing diplomat."
"Thanks!"
"How in the world did you manage that?"
"Well.. um.. I used a ring of human control."
"I see. Well, you know that will only work for a short while and when she comes out of it, she'll know you were mentally dominating her, right?"
"...right..."

-Heidi tries to use the Ring of Human Control on Roman, but finds that it has no effect.
"Hmm.. Roman only LOOKS human?"

-Morris makes his way through the tower of the late wizard John De La Pole, finding that he has to fight against animated quarterstaff guardians. He goes full-apeshit on them with his particle beam cannon.

-Finally opening the front door for his 'friend' the Wizard Viking, they start to explore the tower in earnest, with the wizard-viking making Morris take all the risks, of course.
"I don't see any normal traps on this door.. any magic traps?"
"Um... no."
"Ok my friend!"
"You go ahead..." (the viking wizard backs away)

-At one point, the two are separated by a magical trap. The Viking Wizard is forced to retreat back to the exit, while Morris has to go further up the tower. He finds his way up to the top floor where there's a treasure room! But as he opens the door (finding a room with 10 obviously magical staffs inside, one of which may be Bill's famous and long-lost Primo Staff), a Staff-Golem (a huge humanoid creature made out of many smaller staffs combining into one giant staff-creature) appears! Unfortunately, the golem beats Morris into unconsciousness.

-"So the wizard Roncha had a ring of human control... that.. ugh.. that actually explains a lot."
"Why do I have a feeling that Roncha was like the Bill Cosby of the High Council of Wizards?"

-"I want to get out of here as quickly as possible; this place is turning into a Shithole already!"

-The Council decides to negotiate with Myla and her revolutionaries. They send Heidi and Mu to negotiate.
Incredibly, Heidi's gift of gab manages to keep them from being strung by piano wire, and the revolutionaries agree to the Council's terms (which amounts to them being allowed to live, and to keep control of the wizard-parts of Lol, while giving up all political power).

-"We found this guy in one of the towers, we think he's associated with you. He's been brutally beaten by poles."

-"Morris, you've been probed by the Guardian Robots. There's a bomb inside you!"
"What?"
"Don't worry, we can remove it. But we're going to have to Deprobe you."
"It's going to be like that scene from Total Recall, but in your ass."

-"If something goes wrong and I explode, remember that Bill the Elf is an asshole! And destroy Tholia for me!"

-"Good news! The Deprobing was successful! Your friend will live and is recovering."
"That's not good news."

-"There's a viking wizard I know.."
"I don't want to know about your fetishes."
"No, he was with me at the Pole thing!"
"Stop it! Shut up!"

-The revolutionaries have set up a 'supreme soviet' to govern the city.

-Mu headed to the Library, where he meets Grozlor, grandson of Grilzor, and great-great-grandson of Grezlor, the new receptionist-librarian.

-"Hopefully the Sky-Nazis will be reasonable!"

-Roman plans to bluff the Sky-Nazis into leaving the area, until the PCs have recovered the soul of Alice. When this is accomplished (by somehow going down to the Hell realm and bringing it back with them), the Sky-Nazis will provide a cloned body of the Ancient girl for the soul to inhabit. Then she will hopefully be able to use the Command Codes to get them up into the Crown of Creation to stop Sezrekhan. Of course, the Sky-Nazis plan to restore G.O.D. to full power and have him kill every mutant in the world.

-After an entire session spent trying to learn his new spell, Bill the Elf's player rolls a natural-1 on his learning check.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!"

-Meanwhile, thousands of miles away on Lol:
"Did you guys just hear something?"
"It sounded like a complete asshole just cried out in anguish."

-"Well, look at it this way, when you level up, you can try to learn it again."
"Great. So I just need about 100xp until I can try it again."

That's it for this session. What will Bill do next? Will the PCs really be heading down to Hell? Stay tuned for our next session to find out!